CH. xr] GIRAFFES 297 



a few hundred yards. Hut there were certain trails 

 which did not fade (nit. Tliese were the ones which 

 led to water. One such we followed. It led across 

 stretches of grassland, through thin bush, thorny and 

 almost leafless, over tracts of rotten soil, cracked and 

 crumbling, and over other tracts where the unshod 

 horses picked their way gingerly among the masses of 

 sharp-edged volcanic stones. Other trails joined in, 

 and it grew more deeply marked. At last it led to a 

 bend in a little river, where flat shelves of limestone 

 bordered a kind of pool in the current where there were 

 beds of green rushes and a fringe of trees and thorn 

 thickets. This was evidently a favourite drinking- 

 place. Many trails converged toward it. and for a long 

 distance round the ground was worn completely bare 

 by the hoofs of the countless herds of thirsty game that 

 liad tra\'elled thither from time immemorial. Sleek, 

 liandsome, loiig-horned oryx, with switcliing tails, were 

 loitering in the vicinity ; and at the water-hole itself we 

 surprised a band of gazelles not fifty yards ofl'. They 

 fled panic-stricken in every direction. Men and iiorses 

 drank their All, and we returned to the sunny plains 

 and the endless reaches of withered, rustling grass. 



At last, an hour or two before sunset, when the heat 

 had begun to abate a little, we spied half a dozen 

 giraffes scattered a mile and a half ahead of us feeding 

 on the tops of the few widely-separated thorn-trees. 

 C'uninghame and I started toward them on foot, but 

 they saw us when we were a mile away, and, after 

 gazing a short while, turned and went off at their usual 

 rocking-horse canter, twisting and screwing their tails. 

 We moimted and rode after them. 1 was on my zebra- 

 sliaped brown horse, wiiich was hardy and witii a fair 

 turn of speed, and whicli by this time I had trained to 



